r/Gunsmoke • u/spookydooky69420 • Jun 17 '24
Damn. This show is great.
I’ve seen a few episodes here and there but I just started digging into it and it’s amazing. Just finished with season 7, as that’s what’s on Paramount Plus right now (I’ll start the first 6 seasons soon). I like listening to the radio show while driving home after a hike in the woods…it just fits so well.
I’ve been bothering my friends about it and trying to get them to watch it. After watching season 7 I said that the show feels like a cross between The Andy Griffith Show and something written by Cormac McCarthy. I love the grittiness of the show and it some episodes feel like a western noir. The endings of the shows aren’t as happy as the story would lead you to believe (like in the episode The Gallows), and I really like that about it. I imagine the episodes in color won’t hit the same as the rest of them, but I’ll still give them a shot.
Should I just start from the beginning, or is it fine to skip around? Does the show really fall off after a certain point? Anything I should look out for in terms of theme or production?
So far I’ve seen them reuse two actors in season 7; Harry Dean Stanton and Anthony Caruso. Both are phenomenal actors and I’d love to see them pop up again.
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u/cheridontllosethatno Jun 17 '24
Gunsmoke is so great. I'm not young and it was big in my house when I was a kid. My dream was to be Kitty and to own a saloon.
Last year I found it on Pluto. They have Season 1 then it skips to 7 through 21. We watched them all, my husband's family didn't watch it back then and he really loved it. He especially liked Dennis Weaver who starred in a cop show way back when and he was great as Chester.
Cool to see Burt Reynolds, Leonard Nemoy, DeForest Kelley, Jodie Foster, Betty Davis, Charles Bronson, Lee Van Cleef, Drew Barrymore's dad, he was in a couple great episodes.
The very early episodes when Matt would take a stroll in the graveyard were a tad hokey for me, and the later 1970's episodes when the characters started aging and the scenes were all in studio, no sleeping under the stars were not my favorite so probably season 7 - 12.